Climate Change and Overfishing

In recent years, reports of extraordinarily protracted droughts and above-average sea level rise have been reported due to climate change. The term "climate change" describes the changes in typical weather patterns during a specific time period around the planet (Houghton and John 9). The symptoms are actual and highly concerning because they put biodiversity in danger. Numerous crops, animal species, and even people have had to adapt to new means of surviving, such as altering habitats or life cycles. According to NASA, since the nineteenth century, global temperatures have risen by two degrees Fahrenheit. Over the previous times, the increase in world temperatures was due to natural changes, for instance, the variations in the sun's energy reaching the earth but currently, human activities have intensified the changes in earth temperatures, exposing the ecosystem to risks that may be irreversible. The greenhouse effect, which refers to the warming received when the earth traps heat radiating from the earth towards space, is the primary cause of climate change (Stille 15). In some instances, the gases block heat from escaping hence the rise in temperatures. The gases responsible for this warming include Nitrous Oxide, Methane, Carbon di Oxide and water vapor.

Climate change has so far had adverse effects, and some of these are melting glaciers: a report shows that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have significantly reduced in mass since 2002. Some of the ice covers in the mountains are also slowly fading, for instance, the reduction of the ice cover in Mount Kilimanjaro. To add on to that, there have been cases of extreme heat waves and cold waves. In the year 2010, Russia suffered terrible heatwaves that started at the beginning of summer and caused wildfires and a drought (Ahrens 22). The sea levels are also rising to heights above normal mostly due to the melting ice. A report from National Geography indicates that some Pacific Islands are already struggling with the implications of rising sea levels as they have to continually move to are not likely to be affected by sudden cyclones and storm surges. If these effects are not well controlled, then their implications may have irreversible effects on the ecosystem.

The rise in world temperature has also caused the major problem of Global Warming which is the increase in temperature of the earth's surface both in land and sea. The primary cause of this warming is due to an accumulation of the greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Excessive accumulation of the greenhouse gases has led to trapping of too much heat causing an adverse effect on the earth. Deforestation has also led to the increase of carbon dioxide in the air. Burning these trees lead to exposure of the atmosphere to excess amounts of CO2 while at the same time, cutting the trees reduces the trees that could absorb the CO2 from the atmosphere and reduce the greenhouse effect. Global warming has led to variations in climate leading to effects such as extreme temperatures and rise in sea levels (Stille 15).

Billions of people across the world depend on fish as their sole source of animal protein. Overfishing can be defined as catching too many fish and leaving very few to breed. With overfishing, the fish find it hard to sustain their population, and this leads to the lower fish population (Hilborn and Ulrike 3). The changes in climate are also affecting the fish population. Warming of the oceanic waters make the fish migrate towards the poles, and in doing so, they experience the challenge of competition for food with other polar animals. The adverse effects of climate change have also made the fish and other marine animals to adopt changes that could help them survive. Over-acidification of the sea waters has made oysters and other aquatic species to form shells and skeletons. All these effects disrupt the food web and pose a threat to the universe at large.

African penguins are found in the coast of islands in the Southern parts of Africa. These penguins are adapted to the warm climate in these areas, contrary to other penguin types found in the polar regions. They are commonly referred to as jackass penguins due to the braying sounds they produce while communicating. Some refer to them as the black-footed penguins. They live and breed in their colonies. These penguins do not migrate to breed and research shows that they breed with one mate all year long (Hockey 19) . The eggs are incubated by both parents for thirty-nine days and the hatchlings are fed to maturity by their parents. The penguins feed on crustaceans, small fish such as sardines and fish that are pelagic, mainly because they are adapted to diving for as long as two-and-a-half minutes looking for prey. The animals fall prey to sharks, fur seals, and gulls.

Over the past few years, the penguin populations have majorly reduced over the past few years, and the IUCN recently declared the African penguin as an endangered species. The current population of the birds is at seventy thousand; this shows a 90% drop from the population around ten years ago (Nel and Phil 8). The decline in the population of these penguins is due to stiff competition for food, unfavorable conditions in their habitats and consumption of their eggs by humans. Oil spillage around their colonies also causes their death. For instance, two oil spills between 1994 and 2000 claimed the lives of thirty-thousand penguins (Nel and Phil 30). Most of the penguin's nest in burrows and bushes and under boulders. Their nesting places were referred to as guanos, but the collection of the guano as a source of fertilizer exposed the penguins to adverse heat condition and left them vulnerable to their predators. All these implications affect their breeding patterns and as their population lowers, there are high chances that these marine species might be extinct by the end of the century if proper precautions are not taken. An article published by Tim Collins for Mailonline presents to us the current situation of the African penguin.

The Penguins are known to seek their prey in areas of low sea temperature and high chlorophyll concentration. However, depletion of fish stocks through overfishing in such places has made the penguins look for food in the wrong places that expose them to their predators. A study published in the Current Biology journal makes it clear that the Penguins have not yet adapted to the changes caused by human activities in their habitat. The implication means that they will keep reducing in population as they migrate while looking for food. Regarding climate change, the changes in the Benguela currents, found in the south, have made the jackass penguins to move their feeding grounds many kilometers away from the initial place. Their prey species have also moved due to warming of the oceanic waters. The warming occurs due to rise in temperature of the earth's surface, but reports have it that this rise is never uniform. So it means that the fish have to move from the unfavorable waters to more bearable habitats. (Davisand John 9)



Now that the Cape region is experiencing extreme weather conditions and massive industrial fishing, the young penguins are forced to seek better places to find prey. As reported in the journal Current Biology, the migration sets a trap for these species as more often than not, they move to places with little or no prey. Lack of food, therefore, causes massive deaths among these penguins. The breeding habits of the penguins have been affected by these changes. The Penguins lack safety when it comes to breeding now that they breed under boulders and bushes. The temperatures get too extreme sometimes, and this disrupts their normal patterns, at times forcing them to leave their eggs in the open and when they hatch their chicks die. The Penguins have also withdrawn from interaction with humans along the coast. A study shows that they penguins seem to have withdrawn from their sociable nature and no longer let tourists interact with them. The endangered species now have a reduced lifespan and are quickly being wiped off the face of the universe. Most studies reveal that these effects are irreversible and that if no caution is taken, then the species face the danger of extinction.

Some steps have been taken to try to manage the situation at hand. Regarding climate change, humans need to control the excessive emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Controlling these emissions might help reduce the chances of earth temperatures rising and this will, in turn, ensure the safety of the oceanic waters. If not so, the seas will remain inhabitable by the fish, and this will mean that more penguins will face starvation and maybe become extinct. Industrial fishing, which is a significant threat to these penguins needs to be controlled. The fisheries need to regulate their fishing techniques to ensure that enough adult fish are left in the water to breed. The existence of enough species of fish in the sea will ensure that both human beings and the marine organisms get enough for sustenance. The oil spills that occur in the oceanic waters should be avoided as this will reduce chances of death of the penguins due to suffocation. Marine pollution due to human activities should be done away with to prevent poisoning the habitat for these vulnerable species (Unwin 122).

The public needs to be educated on the risks that face these penguins and how best these risks can either be avoided or countered. Regulatory protection should be exercised to secure the penguin's protection under the law. For instance, in the United States, there exists the endangered species act which protects all the animals listed as endangered species and ensures the safety of their ecosystems as well. Plans are underway to move the African penguins to more favourable environments but meanwhile, they are under special guard, and their guanos have been replaced by artificial nests to serve as breeding sites and to protect them from adverse weather conditions. An organization was known as the Dyer Island Conservation Trust work around the Cape region to ensure that the marine ecosystems are safeguarded, and this includes the wellbeing of the penguins. The Boulder’s Penguin Sanctuary in Simon’s Town has become a conservation place for the African Penguins. The breeding sites of these penguins have also been secured by ensuring that their eggs are not taken by human beings but rather kept well till incubation. The hatched chicks are well taken care of until maturity and all these steps if well managed, seemed to be giving these endangered birds a chance to escape the risk of extinction.

To keep a balance in the ecosystem, both man and animals need to cooperate. Therefore, if human beings take it upon themselves to reduce the negative effects of global warming and climate change, they could help reduce the chances of extinction of the penguins. Most scientists believe that the damage is irreversible due to the increasing human activities that seem to intensify the bad effects of climate change but if these activities are reduced, then the situation at hand could be brought to a manageable level. The Penguins' chances of survival could be increased if overfishing were to be regulated especially in their colonies. There is a promising future for the Penguins only if the humans are willing to cooperate and mollify the adverse effects of their activities that seem to be threatening the penguins.







Works cited

Ahrens, C D. Essentials of Meteorology: An Invitation to the Atmosphere. , 2015. Print

Davis, Lloyd S, and John T. Darby. Penguin Biology. San Diego: Academic Press, 1990. Print.

Hilborn, Ray, and Ulrike Hilborn. Overfishing: What Everyone Needs to Know. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012. Print.

Hockey, Phil. The Jackass Penguin: A Natural History. Capetown: Struik, 2001. Print.

Houghton, John T. The Science of Climate Change: Contribution of Wg I to the Second Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge: Univ. Press, 1998. Print.

Nel, Deon C, and Phil Whittington. Rehabilitation of Oiled African Penguins: A Conservation Success Story. Stellenbosch, South Africa: BirdLife South Africa, 2003. Print

Stille, Darlene R. The Greenhouse Effect: Warming the Planet. Minneapolis, Minn: Compass Point Books, 2007. Print

Unwin, Mike. The Atlas of Birds: Diversity, Behavior, and Conservation. Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 2011. Internet resource.